Deb's surgery went well, but the news we get from it
 is not good.
 
 She was in surgery for a little less than four hours,
 from about 4:40 to around 8:30. I talked to Dr.
 Critchlow, the surgeon, immediately afterward.
 
 First, the tumor appears to be cancer. Second, they
 did not get all of it out. A small amount of it is
 attached to the outside of the liver and the spleen.
 
 Dr. Critchlow believes (for reasons I don't fully
 understand) that the tumor he removed today was not
 the primary tumor. In other words, there is another
 tumor somewhere else that spawned this tumor. He does
 not know where the original tumor is. Presumably that
 original tumor is not growing very fast, because Deb
 has no symptoms other than those caused by the tumor
 that was removed today.
 
 The good part of the news is this: Very little of
 Deb's stomach had to be removed. And the growth of the
 tumor in the last couple weeks was caused by her
 bleeding into it, not by expansion of the tumor
 itself. This bleeding also accounts for her anemia,
 fever, weakness, and basically all the symptoms we
 have seen.
 
 We'll find out where the primary tumor is by analyzing
 the tissue that they removed. The main reason for
 believing that the removed tumor is not the primary (I
 think) is that the tissue type didn't match any of the
 surrounding organs. So it had to come from somewhere
 else. We won't know where until the pathology report
 comes in, probably early next week.
 
 I saw Deb briefly before I left the hospital. She was
 very groggy and we did not discuss the situation. I
 will see her again tomorrow.
 
 Two things will be happening in the next few weeks.
 First, Deb needs to recover from this surgery. Second,
 we need to figure out what kind of cancer this is and
 figure out what treatments are available. In general,
 she should need about four weeks to recover from
 surgery before any other kind of treatment would be
 considered. So we have about four weeks to figure this
 out.
 
 The short-term picture is good. Deb came through the
 surgery well and there is reason to believe that all
 of the symptoms she was seeing have been taken care
 of. The long-term picture is not good. Whatever kind
 of cancer this is, it apparently is already
 metastatic, which means it could pop up anywhere. Some
 kinds of metastatic cancer are treatable and some are
 not, but all of them are dangerous.
 
 I am holding up as well as you could reasonably
 expect. My friends John and Kathy Brackett and Dawn
 LaFrance-Linden stayed with me in the waiting room and
 helped me interview the surgeon afterward. I'm staying
 at the Bracketts' in Lexington at least for tonight.
 I'm going to be making it up day-by-day for a while.
 
 Doug